Not in Your Lifetime: The Defining Book on the J.F.K. Assassination (43 page)

16. 17. Most accept that this photograph
shows Oswald holding the rifle later retrieved
at the scene of the assassination. One copy,
which showed up years later, bore the words,
in Russian: “Hunter of fascists, ha-ha-ha!!!”
(below) Though the dedication appears to be
Oswald’s, the handwriting does not resemble
that of the alleged assassin.

18. 19. A spontaneous incident, or was it staged?
Cuban exiles appeared to clash with Oswald as he
handed out pro-Castro leaflets in New Orleans. It
may, though, have been a phony incident, part of a
U.S. intelligence operation against the Fair Play for
Cuba Committee.

20. Fidel Castro. Some still suspect he was behind the President’s assassination. Others think
there was an effort to fabricate information linking him to the crime.

21. Santo Trafficante, said to have
forecast that the President was “going
to be hit.” Oswald’s killer, Ruby, knew
several Trafficante associates and may
himself have visited the Mob boss.

22. John Roselli, a close Trafficante
associate, was used by the CIA in its plots
to kill Fidel Castro. He was murdered
before Senate Committee questioning
resumed. Did Trafficante order the hit?

23. Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, who
was close to Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, long
feuded with Robert Kennedy and reportedly
favored killing both brothers.

24. New Orleans mob chieftain Carlos Marcello, quoted as having spoken before the
assassination of “setting up a nut to take the blame” and – long afterwards – as boasting
that he had “had the son of a bitch” – the President – “killed.”

25. Allen Dulles, former CIA Director, served
on the Warren Commission. He did not tell
his colleagues about the CIA’s plots to kill
Castro – and privately advised CIA officers
on how to respond to questions as to
Oswald’s possible links to the CIA.

26. James Angleton, CIA Counterintelligence
chief, urged “waiting out” the Commission on
a key matter, and later ordered the seizure of
key documents – which were then suppressed.

27. Richard Helms, a senior CIA official
in 1963, later shrugged off the failure to
acknowledge the Castro assassination plots
with: “It’s an untidy world.”

28. William Sullivan, an FBI Assistant Director,
spoke of an “internal problem” over a note
Oswald had left at the Dallas FBI office – the
note had been ordered destroyed.